Motivational

Political Review New Zealand 2017

I don’t have a great deal of faith in politicians. I’m sure they go into politics with the best of intentions. I believe we need politics, just not in the form it currently takes here in New Zealand. Most of what is apparent in the media is that politicians try to make points to sway voters, not through the work they do but by crying down the work others are endeavouring to do. This is more explicit during an election year. This point making gets great coverage during the leaders debates.

Left, centre left, right, centre right, far right, far left – far out. Each attempting to garner their share of the vote, especially in a mixed member proportional system (MMP) where 5% of the vote will get a seat in the government in NZ. There’s the staunch supporters of each party with a steel ramrods where their spines would normally be. They will never waiver from the cause as long as they live. And then at the other end of the spectrum there are the truly apathetic. Well they used to be apathetic – now they just don’t care!

The rest of us are arranged somewhere at varying points along the continuum. With varying levels of belief and disbelief. As it was election year in 2017 what follows are some of the beliefs the political parties wanted us to take up and the disbelief particularly from this commentator that they evoked.

Delivering

Politics & motivation may seem to be a little at odds with each other? Well, perhaps not too much. Politicians are campaigning – motivating their voters to maintain their loyalty and to grab the fence-sitters that can’t make their minds up.

On the cusp of the election year – late 2016 the incumbent Prime Minister John Key stepped down creating a space for those waiting in the wings to push their claims. In the end they went with the obvious choice – Finance Minister and the PMs Deputy Bill English. A difficult time as there’d been another major earthquake with extensive damage to infrastructure. He coped well coming in not only with that on his plate but also the shadow of an election on the horizon.

When a party is campaigning for an election there are certain rules they must follow. They staged a good campaign – their billboards (the NATIONAL party) were probably the first to be sighted around the urban areas and countryside. Silly me! I thought they were advertising a new courier company! They were a potent force carrying the country through years of earthquakes and that was the best they could come up with?

Let’s Do This

About the same time that John Key stood down there was a changing of the guard in the LABOUR party. Andrew Little took the reins and the party expected he was the figurehead on the prow of Labour’s ship sailing into the harbour of the election. His deputy in the campaign was the woman at left – Jacinda Ardern and the slogan chosen was A Fresh Approach.

No sooner had the electioneering begun Andrew Little dropped a bombshell and stepped down from the leadership and the reins fell into the hands of Ardern. A Fresh Approach became Let’s do this and the campaign gained some impetus with a focus on working towards the elimination of child poverty. On election day the scales were well balanced.

KingMaker

In the wake of election day National had a narrow lead. Once the Special Votes were counted (nearly a month later), a decisive majority was about as clear as mud. The Leader of the third string New Zealand First party Winston Peters came into play holding the power as KingMaker to either go with National and gift them another term or bring together the Labour, Greens and Maori parties to create a new government. Their campaign slogan was Had Enough. I guess he had had enough. Winston became a QueenMaker with Jacinda Ardern at the helm of a new government. She will steer the parliamentary ship for the next three years with Winston as First Mate.

Manifesto

A manifesto, often associated with political parties, is a published declaration of their motives and intentions. Anyone can access a party manifesto and see if its ideology gels with theirs. It’s helpful to know what a party stands for – if you can stand with them. I think I heard it said somewhere that if you don’t stand for something you could fall for anything. Back in the day voters would seek out the party manifesto. Today as I said before parties are relying on advertising on billboards, television, radio. Unless you’re watching or listening to the Leaders’ debates you’ll never be clear about what policies you’re voting for.

Takeaways

From a motivational perspective these political musings leave me with plenty to ponder:

I wonder if I am delivering my best for myself and others?

Have I got a great campaign strategy for my life?

What is the Manifesto that will guide my journey?

Are my intentions and motives for the New Year clear?

When I say to myself Let’s do this am I clear about what I am doing and where I’m going with it.

Party politics is great for getting a melting pot of voices into the houses of parliament. My belief is that parties should leave those politics at the door and their voices should join together to create harmony in what is best for the country.

Likewise you may have many ideas about what you should be doing with your life. There maybe indecision when contemplating the ideas individually. Start molding these ideas into a form that will keep you on track. Discover which are the strongest and closest to your heart and focus on those to achieve your goals.

When going through this process work out what the ideas are which are most aligned with your values.

Be aware if there are aspects of your life where you are sitting on the fence. Are you waiting for an outcome that doesn’t require any input from you? You may need to invoke some decisiveness.

That’s the beauty of life – everywhere we look, we can find soulfulness, wisdom and humour.

Selling a business, embarking on a radical new project, moving house, change in a relationship – these are all stressful circumstances requiring decisions. We may even wonder when considering them – Is it worth it? Losing sleep, agitation, anxiety, and moodiness are all possible symptoms of the stress that manifests in our lives. I know this – leaving a previous relationship created deeply affecting footprints in my mind. And it can become debilitating – especially when our emotions runneth over. At the times we are in this state it doesn’t seem fair and we can get into a why me, what if loop. Loop…Sometimes it can feel like a noose.

At home, we’ve had the noose of big decisions hanging over us recently. The stress hadn’t yet become unbearable. It was on the rise and we wanted to head it off at the pass. On the surface there was no alternative – we had to go ahead with it. Making a decision determines a future. When there is money involved it’s always easy to run the figures and make a decision based on what will be the best return on investment (ROI).

Talking

When you’re a partnership you tend to pick up emotional signals from your nearest and dearest. We’d run the figures and produced a cost analysis. When it’s an integral feature of your life there other aspects that will benefit from crunching numbers. These numbers tell a different story. They tell us the cost not only from a financial perspective but also from physical, mental, emotional and spiritual perspectives. By taking each of these and creating a dialogue around them we are more easily able to understand how they are affecting the decisions we need to make. Remaining open in the conversation and not allowing walls we may have previously erected in our minds to colour any notions that arise can lead us to ideas we may not have considered before. These ultimately change the evaluation we make purely on the financial aspects.

Charting

It helps to have a pen and paper handy when going through this exercise. By writing ideas down we can connect what is in our minds with something tangible. The concepts we are contemplating may be dismissed as sentimental so write them down anyway as the physical act of writing grounds them in a sense of reality. We begin to realize these decisions are more than just monetary and may involve finding a more profound reason for their emergence. This contemplation could be likened to a brainstorm. Well, maybe the mental and financial aspects. For the emotional, physical, and spiritual a deep heartful breeze would be more conducive to the discovery of the factors affecting our decision. Charting them makes them visible and we decide which hold more weight in our hearts. Get them written down as you go. Create a chart for maintaining the status quo and then another for the new possibilities you are envisioning. Then split both into advantages and disadvantages.

Marking

The process of charting reminds me of the music charts – what’s number 1, what’s in the top 10, top 40 and so on. Once you’ve charted the ideas important to your decisions you can weigh the spiritual & emotional in your hearts, the mental and financial in your minds. You probably won’t make it to a top 40 but, certainly you’ll come up with at least 10. Then assign a number between 1(least important) and 10(most important) to each idea. Soon you’ll know which advantages and disadvantages hold the most weight for you.

Perspective

As you count up the numbers the decisions may become immediately apparent or they may not. You may have more advantages than disadvantages and the weight you attach to them may have given you a total that doesn’t make a decision definite. If that’s the case you can turn the final numbers into percentages to give you a better idea. This may make the decision much easier. Up to this point, we’ve focused mainly on the separate pros and cons and weighted them individually. It is a good idea to sit back and ponder both the status quo and the new possibility and all the different aspects together as a whole. There may be more insights to gain here that may colour a final decision. And if there is more than one person involved in this then more diverse insights can be gleaned.

Conclusion

Think outside the square when making a decision – look at it from all sides. The more sides you look at it from the better the picture you get. Do the numbers from each perspective. You do the numbers right the more clarity you get. Numbers don’t lie. There is a sense of control over the decision. I know when I’ve made some decisions in the past especially when I was sitting on a dilemma I felt like I might as well have tossed the dice or flipped a coin. Somehow that seemed frivolous and didn’t really honour the seriousness of what was being considered.

Anyway being a geek once we’d used this process to help us with the outcome I just had to jump into a spreadsheet and put it together to make it easier in the future. It seems fortuitous that we’re on the cusp of the New Year as this process seems tailor-made for considering resolutions in this physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, 360-degree fashion. The Power Grid seemed a good name for it as gives a sense of control to any decision making process. And it can open the user up to other objectives. Another use that struck me as I created it was as a prioritisation tool, especially for planning a day, an event, a project – anything with an expected result. I’m sure you’ll come up with other uses for it as well.

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Good luck – Your decisions determine your future and move you with determination to your destiny. Happy New Year, Blessings, and all the best for 2018.

Celebrate Your Year: 23 Questions to Inventory Your Successes and Set New Year Goals

As you set your new year goals for 2017, it’s a good idea to take stock of the progress you made toward your goals last year. For many people, this review is unpleasant and can even lead to a downward spiral.

If you didn’t achieve all of the goals you set at the beginning of last year, you may feel like you have failed. Our self-esteem can take a hit, we can become disheartened and discouraged, and our motivation drops. Some people actually become depressed.

If this sounds familiar, it’s time to reframe how you look at success. Zeroing in on accomplishments that didn’t happen puts your focus on what you lack, rather than on what you have (the things you did experience and accomplish). This subtle mental trap leads to a host of negative consequences, which usually leads to attracting more lack.

The answer is not giving up the review of your year. Periodic review is essential to the process of growth and goal achievement. The key is to acknowledge, appreciate, and celebrate what you did accomplish, and then to refocus on the goals that you still want to achieve.

Achieving a goal is a lot like flying a plane. You’re guaranteed to be off course 99 percent of the time, which means that if you want to successfully reach your destination, it is essential to periodically check your position and correct your course. December is an ideal time to perform this much-needed review and analysis.

Create a “Win List” For the Year

One of the techniques Jack teaches his coaching clients is to create a detailed “Win List” at the end of the year. Its purpose is to help you acknowledge all of your wins, especially those that didn’t start as a written goal or intention.

This powerful technique takes about 30 minutes to complete. Start by listing all of the goals you set and achieved this year. Then list any other wins you think of – both large and small.

Here are some questions to help identify your successes.

• What wins or progress did you achieve in business?
• Did you discontinue an old product or develop a new product or product line?
• Did you identify a new market to focus on?
• Did you create any new marketing pieces or campaigns?
• Did you delegate any tasks to become more productive? This could include adding new staff and/or assistants, such as a housekeeper, executive assistant, gardener, errand runner, babysitter, or child care person. It also might include putting new systems into place to increase your efficiency.
• Did you buy, use or learn to use any new technology? This includes mental, emotional or spiritual technology, as well as mechanical, electronic and digital technology?
• Did you spend more time in nature?
• Did you develop any new supportive habits (such as meditation, exercise, sleep, or gratitude)? Did you overcome any non-supportive habits (for example, addiction to alcohol, caffeine, sugar, video games, porn, gambling, or shopping)?
• How did you grow in leadership?
• Did you deliver any presentations or speeches or develop new programs?
• Did you develop any new abilities, skills, or competencies?
• What success did you achieve in the areas of financial income, investments, or debt reduction?
• Did you create any new relationships or deepen existing relationships? Consider both business and personal relationships.
• Did you make any progress in self-development?
• Did you attend any positive events (e.g., seminars, lectures, concerts, theater, or sports)?
• Did you experience any positive events with your family?
• Were there any positive events in relation to your house or apartment?
• Did you take any trips or vacations?
• Were there any positive additions to your life?
• Were there any positive events in your community?
• How about any positive events in your spiritual life (e.g., church services, meditation, retreats, rituals)?
• Did you experience any positive events in regards to letting go (e.g., bad habits, negative people, or clutter)?
• Did you have any wins in health and fitness (e.g., weight, exercise, cholesterol, sports, or endurance)?

Reduce Mental Friction

Mental “friction” caused by negative thoughts and feelings will slow down your progress as you work to achieve your goals. By using this technique to focus your attention on what you did achieve, you’ll shift into a state of gratitude and joy, accelerating your momentum into the new year.

Begin Thinking About and Setting New Year Goals for 2017

Once you’ve gone through and written down what your successes are for this year, Jack wants you to then start thinking about setting goals for next year. Goals need to be specific and measurable. How much, and by when? When do you want to accomplish it?

Also, review your long-term goals. Maybe you have a goal to write a book, to become a professor, to become a multi-millionaire. That may be five, or 10 years out. But you want to think about, “What do I have to accomplish in 2017 to make sure I get to my long-term goals.”

Here are 6 areas of your life that I want you to set goals for:

1. Set Goals for Your Financial Life

Have a goal for your financial life. Jack’s 2017 goal is $19 million for our company and $8 million in personal income for me. He will completely pay off my mortgage this year, which would make him completely debt free.

2. Set Goals for Your Career

Have a goal for your job and career. What do you want to accomplish at work in 2017? Do you want to make more money, get a promotion, or release a new product? Jack’s is to complete an outline and the first draft of his book on Love and Fear this year. Use your win list to evaluate what you want to accomplish this year in your career.

3. Set Goals for Your Relationships

Have at least one goal for the relationships in your life. Think about your family, your friends, your significant others. His goal for 2017 is to spend 20 days in the coming year with his grandson Ozzie.

4. Set Goals For Fun and Recreation

Have a goal for fun and recreation. Jack’s is 135 free days. That means no work from midnight to midnight, including 30 vacation days with my wife. He also wants to learn two children’s songs on a guitar so he can sing them to his grandson, and to learn two magic tricks so he can entertain him.

5. Set Goals for Fitness and Health

What’s a goal for you in terms of health and fitness? It might be running a marathon or achieving your ideal weight. It might be to become more flexible or strong. Jack’s goal for 2017 is to weigh 195 pounds or less, be able to do 40 pushups in a row, do 100 hours of yoga, and improve his posture.

6. Set Personal Goals

Set personal goals for yourself. What is something you want to do, simply because you want to do it? This year, Jack’s going to commit to two hours a week to learn Spanish so he can talk to the people in Southern California where he lives a lot more effectively than he currently does. He’s also going to read 50 books, and totally declutter and reorganize his office and his garage. What’s a personal goal for you?

What is one big goal you’d like to achieve in 2017? Take time to really think about that. What is a goal that you want to achieve that would help you create an extraordinary life, that will be a breakthrough to a new level for you? This is possible, and he wants to help you achieve that.

Remember, review your past year, really realize you’ve achieved a lot, and feel good about that. That’s building the poker chips of self-esteem that will allow you to take the risks you need to take in the new year to create your extraordinary life.

Create Your Extraordinary Life One Big Goal at a Time

This powerful, brand-new, video course is his ultimate training program in setting and achieving your biggest goals. He’ll walk you through the steps needed to create a crystal clear vision of what you want, choosing a BIG, ambitious goal, and putting together a complete plan of action and achievement. Make 2017 your best year yet.

Jack Canfield, America’s #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul® and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you’re ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com